How to sell real estate during a crisis and quarantine
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 7:12 am
Content
Live display of the object
3D Tours and VR
Specialized sites for placing objects
Advertising in social networks and parsing contacts from social networks
The best and working alternative is advertising in Google and Yandex
Payment/Purchase Methods
Value
"Thinking" clients
Hot Deals
Hi! My name is Alexander Orekhov, I am the Taiwan WhatsApp number managing partner of PRAVI Group. We help companies increase sales by optimizing the work of their employees. From 2017 to 2019, I worked for one of the leading companies in the Dubai real estate market, headed the sales department in India, and started with cold sales at the British Marcus Evans in the UAE.
Over 13 years of international sales and team management, I have accumulated interesting experience (not always successful), including in the conditions of economic downturn and low market, which can be used in the current situation. I would like to share some of the conclusions from it with real estate sellers within the framework of the CoMagic.Help project .
I will say right away that I do not believe in quick solutions, tricks and secret techniques. I believe in long-term work, building relationships and bringing value to the client (benefit).
It is important to understand: the effectiveness of using any tool is always individual and depends on the fine-tuning and team of each individual company. I will share what we tried and what worked or did not work specifically for us. Your experience may be different.
Don't waste your advertising budget
The call tracking and end-to-end analytics service will show the effectiveness of each source in terms of “from click to sale”.
Get a consultation
Live display of the object
Of course, the most reliable story is a live showing of the property and live communication. Although again, everything depends on your approach/seller. With our target audience in Dubai (these are businessmen and people considering real estate as an investment), 60-70% of deals are closed without the clients actually visiting the property. How? High-quality communication with the client, detailed explanation of the product, country, photos (see the Value section).
This is especially relevant now. You need to convey to customers that buying without visiting is the norm. Take a few more photos, focusing the target audience's attention on the details that interest them, and actively promote this option.
And don't fall into the "average salesperson" trap - don't send too many options to the client. People have time now, and they will be ready to study more options. In fact, this is not good, first of all, for them. We noticed at the initial stage of work that the deal cycle depends, among other things, on the number of options offered to the client: the more there are, the longer the client thinks, the more often the deals fail. When you offer people more than 5 options, they start to get confused. Therefore, initially, before offering the first option, study the client's task in detail. You must understand what and why he is looking for (and whether he is looking for it or his wife, for example), and only after that offer reasonable options.
The "here's a nice option that's become available" option won't work. And please, forget about the question: "What's your budget?" I assure you that just asking this question will cost you several deals a year.
3D Tours and VR
At some point, there was a boom in 3D tours of apartments. We also got involved in this story, made tours of several properties, and posted them on the website. The result is not worth the time and money spent. In fact, properties with 3D tours were sold in the same way as properties with simple photos (the photos must be high-quality, of course). That is, the presence of a 3D tour does not increase sales of properties. The manager's communication with the client came to the fore again: what photos he sent, how and what he explained to the client, how he led before the deal.
Conclusion: if you have a choice between buying a 3D tour for your properties and hiring cool salespeople, choose the latter. The same is true for VR technologies, which are gaining popularity and are very promising for real estate. But it will only provide maximum efficiency if you have a strong team. Otherwise, it’s just an expensive toy.
Specialized sites for placing objects
We tried premium placement on the top platform for foreign real estate in the Russian Federation - one month, first page, constant updates. The result? Zero leads in a month. We did not expect this. Of all the tested tools, this one gave the worst result. At the same time, this platform announces huge figures for traffic, etc.
At the same time, the local platform Dubizzle in Dubai provides a good flow of leads.
Conclusion: do a small test and do not immediately sign up for a long story. A week of testing and a conclusion about subsequent work with the site is a normal option.
Advertising in social networks and parsing contacts from social networks
This story brings a lot of contacts. Especially if you hit it not only in the Russian Federation, but also in foreign markets. But this gives an empty load to your managers and a lot of expensive calls and conversations with a minimum of output. The main answers, sounding in different languages, to calls on such an upload: "I don't understand what you're talking about", "I didn't go anywhere", "I saw something, I don't need anything", "I just clicked".
The best and working alternative is advertising in Google and Yandex
Here again, everything depends on your advertising specialist and budgets. But, objectively, for incoming leads at the moment it is still a working and reliable tool.
Payment/Purchase Methods
In 99% of cases of purchasing real estate abroad, clients ask questions about payment methods.
This is a topic worth taking a closer look at and constantly keeping your finger on the pulse. You need to understand who has money now and HOW IT IS CONVENIENT FOR CLIENTS TO PAY, and not how it is convenient for you to accept payment.
For example, people actually bought apartments for bitcoins without flying to Dubai, when the rate was $8-10 thousand per bitcoin. That is, a person remotely chose an apartment, transferred bitcoins to an intermediary, the intermediary converted the bitcoin into dirham, and the transaction was completed.
Accordingly, in the current coronavirus crisis, in addition to people who have lost money, there are people who have earned money and are thinking about how to save it. Real estate is one of the tools that can help them with this. The task is to be the first to find these people and correctly present the information and your value to them.
Value
Real estate transaction cycles for our target audience in Dubai average 3-6 months, even in non-crisis conditions. At the same time, you need to understand that the client most likely communicates not only with you, but also with another agent. A person thinks, compares, chooses. Therefore, it is important to fill this selection period not only with sending options and reminders about yourself, like “what have you decided” (90% of companies on the market do this, we checked). You need to give the potential client more. For example, information on the country's legislation, which will then be useful to the owner of the apartment, contacts of the local community of the country in Dubai so that the person can immerse himself in the environment of his future residence, statistics on the ROI of a given area of the city, etc. During the transaction cycle, you need to make 3-5 such “non-sales” contacts with clients plus 5-7 contacts regarding the transaction itself. Thus, during the transaction cycle, you will have about 12 contacts with the client.
That is, you need to make it clear that the apartment will be just a point in the client's new life, around which life will revolve. For everyone, it will be different: for some, it will be built around family, for others, around business. The seller's job is to understand what the client's life will be built around after purchasing real estate, and to provide information about this before selling the apartment. This can only be done if you really care about the person. Yes, there are sellers who can imitate care and concern for the client. But an experienced person will always see through such people, and in the long run, such salespeople lose to a team that is sincerely focused on helping the client.
This is the most important point. It will ensure sustainable systemic development and gradual growth of a truly loyal customer base (provided that you do not screw up in other aspects of the company's functioning - this is a very important point, which is not included in the scope of this article).
Live display of the object
3D Tours and VR
Specialized sites for placing objects
Advertising in social networks and parsing contacts from social networks
The best and working alternative is advertising in Google and Yandex
Payment/Purchase Methods
Value
"Thinking" clients
Hot Deals
Hi! My name is Alexander Orekhov, I am the Taiwan WhatsApp number managing partner of PRAVI Group. We help companies increase sales by optimizing the work of their employees. From 2017 to 2019, I worked for one of the leading companies in the Dubai real estate market, headed the sales department in India, and started with cold sales at the British Marcus Evans in the UAE.
Over 13 years of international sales and team management, I have accumulated interesting experience (not always successful), including in the conditions of economic downturn and low market, which can be used in the current situation. I would like to share some of the conclusions from it with real estate sellers within the framework of the CoMagic.Help project .
I will say right away that I do not believe in quick solutions, tricks and secret techniques. I believe in long-term work, building relationships and bringing value to the client (benefit).
It is important to understand: the effectiveness of using any tool is always individual and depends on the fine-tuning and team of each individual company. I will share what we tried and what worked or did not work specifically for us. Your experience may be different.
Don't waste your advertising budget
The call tracking and end-to-end analytics service will show the effectiveness of each source in terms of “from click to sale”.
Get a consultation
Live display of the object
Of course, the most reliable story is a live showing of the property and live communication. Although again, everything depends on your approach/seller. With our target audience in Dubai (these are businessmen and people considering real estate as an investment), 60-70% of deals are closed without the clients actually visiting the property. How? High-quality communication with the client, detailed explanation of the product, country, photos (see the Value section).
This is especially relevant now. You need to convey to customers that buying without visiting is the norm. Take a few more photos, focusing the target audience's attention on the details that interest them, and actively promote this option.
And don't fall into the "average salesperson" trap - don't send too many options to the client. People have time now, and they will be ready to study more options. In fact, this is not good, first of all, for them. We noticed at the initial stage of work that the deal cycle depends, among other things, on the number of options offered to the client: the more there are, the longer the client thinks, the more often the deals fail. When you offer people more than 5 options, they start to get confused. Therefore, initially, before offering the first option, study the client's task in detail. You must understand what and why he is looking for (and whether he is looking for it or his wife, for example), and only after that offer reasonable options.
The "here's a nice option that's become available" option won't work. And please, forget about the question: "What's your budget?" I assure you that just asking this question will cost you several deals a year.
3D Tours and VR
At some point, there was a boom in 3D tours of apartments. We also got involved in this story, made tours of several properties, and posted them on the website. The result is not worth the time and money spent. In fact, properties with 3D tours were sold in the same way as properties with simple photos (the photos must be high-quality, of course). That is, the presence of a 3D tour does not increase sales of properties. The manager's communication with the client came to the fore again: what photos he sent, how and what he explained to the client, how he led before the deal.
Conclusion: if you have a choice between buying a 3D tour for your properties and hiring cool salespeople, choose the latter. The same is true for VR technologies, which are gaining popularity and are very promising for real estate. But it will only provide maximum efficiency if you have a strong team. Otherwise, it’s just an expensive toy.
Specialized sites for placing objects
We tried premium placement on the top platform for foreign real estate in the Russian Federation - one month, first page, constant updates. The result? Zero leads in a month. We did not expect this. Of all the tested tools, this one gave the worst result. At the same time, this platform announces huge figures for traffic, etc.
At the same time, the local platform Dubizzle in Dubai provides a good flow of leads.
Conclusion: do a small test and do not immediately sign up for a long story. A week of testing and a conclusion about subsequent work with the site is a normal option.
Advertising in social networks and parsing contacts from social networks
This story brings a lot of contacts. Especially if you hit it not only in the Russian Federation, but also in foreign markets. But this gives an empty load to your managers and a lot of expensive calls and conversations with a minimum of output. The main answers, sounding in different languages, to calls on such an upload: "I don't understand what you're talking about", "I didn't go anywhere", "I saw something, I don't need anything", "I just clicked".
The best and working alternative is advertising in Google and Yandex
Here again, everything depends on your advertising specialist and budgets. But, objectively, for incoming leads at the moment it is still a working and reliable tool.
Payment/Purchase Methods
In 99% of cases of purchasing real estate abroad, clients ask questions about payment methods.
This is a topic worth taking a closer look at and constantly keeping your finger on the pulse. You need to understand who has money now and HOW IT IS CONVENIENT FOR CLIENTS TO PAY, and not how it is convenient for you to accept payment.
For example, people actually bought apartments for bitcoins without flying to Dubai, when the rate was $8-10 thousand per bitcoin. That is, a person remotely chose an apartment, transferred bitcoins to an intermediary, the intermediary converted the bitcoin into dirham, and the transaction was completed.
Accordingly, in the current coronavirus crisis, in addition to people who have lost money, there are people who have earned money and are thinking about how to save it. Real estate is one of the tools that can help them with this. The task is to be the first to find these people and correctly present the information and your value to them.
Value
Real estate transaction cycles for our target audience in Dubai average 3-6 months, even in non-crisis conditions. At the same time, you need to understand that the client most likely communicates not only with you, but also with another agent. A person thinks, compares, chooses. Therefore, it is important to fill this selection period not only with sending options and reminders about yourself, like “what have you decided” (90% of companies on the market do this, we checked). You need to give the potential client more. For example, information on the country's legislation, which will then be useful to the owner of the apartment, contacts of the local community of the country in Dubai so that the person can immerse himself in the environment of his future residence, statistics on the ROI of a given area of the city, etc. During the transaction cycle, you need to make 3-5 such “non-sales” contacts with clients plus 5-7 contacts regarding the transaction itself. Thus, during the transaction cycle, you will have about 12 contacts with the client.
That is, you need to make it clear that the apartment will be just a point in the client's new life, around which life will revolve. For everyone, it will be different: for some, it will be built around family, for others, around business. The seller's job is to understand what the client's life will be built around after purchasing real estate, and to provide information about this before selling the apartment. This can only be done if you really care about the person. Yes, there are sellers who can imitate care and concern for the client. But an experienced person will always see through such people, and in the long run, such salespeople lose to a team that is sincerely focused on helping the client.
This is the most important point. It will ensure sustainable systemic development and gradual growth of a truly loyal customer base (provided that you do not screw up in other aspects of the company's functioning - this is a very important point, which is not included in the scope of this article).